On Chariots with Horses of Fire and Iron deals with the arrival of modernity in the Holy Land in the form of the meter-gauge Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway, inaugurated in September 1892. It was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in the modern Holy Land. Thogh several proposals had been put forward since the 1850s, it was only in the 1880s that two young Jewish entrepreneurs, Josef Navon of Jerusalem and Josef Amzalak of Jaffa, backed by the Protestant banker Johannes Frutigur, were enabled to take the first steps leading to the acquisition of a license from the Ottoman government for laying down the iron rails. Unable to raise sufficient capital in Europe, Navon sold out to a group of Catholic businessmen in Paris, who established the Societe du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa a Jerusalem et Prolongements.Despite difficulties due to poor construction and inadequate traffic during the early years, the railroad opened up Jerusalem to modern tourism, brought greater numbers of pilgrims, and contricuted to the growth of the city.

On Chariots with Horses of Fire and Iron deals with the arrival of modernity in the Holy Land in the form of the meter-gauge Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway, inaugurated in September 1892. It was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in the modern Holy Land. Thogh several proposals had been put forward since the 1850s, it was only in the 1880s that two young Jewish entrepreneurs, Josef Navon of Jerusalem and Josef Amzalak of Jaffa, backed by the Protestant banker Johannes Frutigur, were enabled to take the first steps leading to the acquisition of a license from the Ottoman government for laying down the iron rails. Unable to raise sufficient capital in Europe, Navon sold out to a group of Catholic businessmen in Paris, who established the Societe du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa a Jerusalem et Prolongements.Despite difficulties due to poor construction and inadequate traffic during the early years, the railroad opened up Jerusalem to modern tourism, brought greater numbers of pilgrims, and contricuted to the growth of the city.